Cincinnati's de-facto third party fights to preserve a historical mission

It’s something purely Cincinnati with a
long-standing place in local political history, and many Cincinnatians
aren’t even aware of it.

The Charter Committee, Cincinnati’s
de-facto independent third political party, is responsible for much of
the way city government is structured today. The committee controlled
City Council for much of the ’70s and ’80s in coalition with the
Democrats. Two Charterites currently serve on council, and the committee
has had a presence on council almost every year since the ’20s. Still,
many Cincinnatians aren’t aware of its continued existence.

Charter’s current leader says this is something of a PR problem.

“We need to do better at marketing,”
concedes Charter Committee President Kevin Flynn, who was selected to
head the committee in March after former president Dawn Denno stepped
down due to health and business issues. Flynn unsuccessfully ran for
council under the Charter banner in 2009 and 2011, finishing ahead of
the three incumbents voted out of office in the most recent election but
not ranking among the top nine.

“If I do nothing else as president, it
would be to get people to stop saying the Charter Committee is on its
last legs. Or, even worse, when I was campaigning have people say,
‘What’s Charter?’ ”

This local party, which planned the first
riverfront stadium and made Cincinnati the first to adopt a city
manager-council form of government, came about in response to the city’s
reputation as the most corrupt major city in America. While it stayed
strong through the ’80s, its membership and influence is waning. But its
leaders say the city needs the Charter Committee more than ever.

•••

Charter claims to be the oldest active
independent political party in America. And for observers of Cincinnati
politics who think the politics of recent council sessions have been
screwy, the Charter Committee was born at a time when Boss Cox’s
Cincinnati was considered the most corruptly governed major city in the
United States.

In the 1920s Cincinnati politics was
controlled by the system started by Republican “Boss” George Cox. Though
unelected after only two terms on City Council, Cox virtually ran city
government by using gifts and money to build support among Cincinnatians
and then having them vote for the candidates of his choice.

At the time, City Council was made up of
32 members, with 26 of those elected from local districts. Cox’s
successor — New York brothel owner Rudolph Hynicka — was losing control
of the local Republican Party by 1924. Fresh off a tax levy defeat the
previous year, an offshoot of the upstart reform group The Cincinnatus
Association merged with another good government group to create the City
Charter Committee, led by young reform-minded Republican lawyer Murray
Seasongood.

The first major action of the Charter
Committee was to put before voters an amendment to create a form of city
government that looks remarkably like the one we have today:

The proposed amendment adopted by
Cincinnati voters in 1924 created the nine-member council elected at
large; the system of nominating council candidates by petition instead
of in a primary election; nonpartisan elections where candidates aren’t
identified by their political party on the ballot; a Civil Service
System for City Hall appointments to replace the patronage system; and
the city manager-council format of government where administrative power
lays with a professional city manager instead of an elected mayor.

“Cincinnati was the first large city that
adopted the city manager government,” Flynn says. “We had an
administrator instead of a politician running the day-to-day operations
of the city. Politicians still crafted policy matters, but there was
less graft and corruption.”

Members of the major political parties
also recognize the Charter reforms’ effects on undoing the malfeasance
of the city’s political boss era.

“Cincinnati has been, for the most part,
very free of the corruption that many others have faced,” says Hamilton
County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke.

Charterites were particularly wedded to
the manager-council form of government, something that was recently
overturned when Cincinnatians in 1999 voted to elect a more powerful
mayor directly. The original amendment pushed by Charter called for
council members to select a mayor from amongst its members as a
figurehead, which was later changed to the top vote-getter becoming the
mayor. The Charter Committee eventually endorsed the move.

“(The original Charter reforms had) a
totally weak mayor who literally did nothing more than ribbon cutting,
in terms of political power,” Burke says.

The Democratic Party has been quicker to adopt changes that have occurred, he says.

Burke points out that a number of the
Charter-endorsed candidates who have made it onto City Council in recent
years have been registered on the national level as Democrats.

That
includes the Charterites currently on council — Vice Mayor Roxanne
Qualls and Councilwoman Yvette Simpson — both of whom have been
co-endorsed by the Democratic Party, in an unprecedented move.

“I’ve got to give them credit, they came
up with Yvette before we did,” Burke says. “She’s absolutely terrific, a
wonderful, wonderful choice. We liked her so much we stole her.”

•••

The Charter Committee isn’t an official
party under Ohio law because to be recognized a third party must have
its candidate receive 5 percent of the ballots cast for governor or
presidential nominee in the most recent election. It can also submit a
petition signed by qualified voters equal in number to at least one
percent of the total vote for governor or nominees for presidential
electors.

Because Cincinnati City Council elections
are nonpartisan, candidates don’t run as Democrat, Republican or under
the banner of a third party. However, parties can choose to endorse
candidates and assist them with campaign cash or volunteers.

As such, the Charter Committee has
endorsed candidates who have been registered on the national level as
Republicans, Democrats and everything in between. While both current
Charterites on council are registered Democrats, former Charterite
Councilman Chris Bortz was a registered Republican.

“We want to be independent,” Flynn says.
“The big policy positions of the national parties don’t really come into
play at a local level. I believe it was (former New York) Mayor
(Fiorello) LaGuardia who said there’s no Democratic way to pick up trash
and no Republican way to fill a pothole. “

“We support and work for the election of candidates that share our principles.”

Broadly, the Charter Committee believes
in improving the livability of Cincinnati. It supports good public
transportation — it is in favor of the streetcar system, and it was a
strong Charter hand in the council that created the Southwest Ohio
Regional Transit Authority (which runs Metro) — as well as the city
parks system, the arts and well-maintained utilities. It was also a
Charter-controlled council that adopted the plan to build the first
stadium on the riverfront.

The Charter Committee also supports a
number of things traditionally considered in the realm of progressive
politics, including reducing pollution, funding adequate jail and
treatment services and community health services, as well as
establishing cost-of-living wage increases for municipal employees.

Charter also holds the distinction of
fielding Cincinnati’s first black and female mayors – Theodore Berry and
Bobbie Sterne respectively.

The Charter Committee was last most
prominent in the 1970s and ’80s when it controlled council in coalition
with Democrats. Since then, and more recently, the committee has lost a
lot of visibility.

“They’re a little bit less significant
now than they used to be,” says Mark Silbersack, president of the same
Cincinnatus Association that helped birth the Charter Committee in the
1920s. “The city has become really more of a one-party city in terms of
the elected officials.”

Gene Beaupre, director for government
relations at Xavier University and longtime observer of local politics
who got his start working for Jerry Springer, says Charterites face an
uphill battle. For one, they don’t have a precinct-level operation
getting out the vote and handing out literature near polling places.

They also don’t have the name recognition
that the major parties do. That can also work in their favor, as they
can be seen as being a bit removed from the political fray, Beaupre
says.

The dominance of media in public discussion has also aided to the fading prominence of the Charter Committee.

“Charterites by their nature were never
particularly headline-seeking people and, like it or not, one of the
ways you promote your policies as well as yourself when election time
comes around is having access to and ability to work with the media,”
Beaupre says.

“That’s not on their agenda. They just
say, ‘let’s do the right thing and let that speak for itself.’ Another
party might say, ‘let’s do the right thing and have that trailing behind
the Goodyear blimp during a football game.’ ”

Burke says Charter suffers from a lack of young blood.

“I do think that the folks who are active
in Charter tend to be an older, and frankly, smaller group — a bunch of
wise people who have contributed significantly to the community, but I
don’t see them drawing a bunch of younger people into the organization,”
he says.

Marilyn Ormsbee, who worked on Charter
campaigns in the ’70s and ’80s and has long served on the committee’s
board, agrees that the aging of the city’s population most familiar with
the committee during its heyday is also hurting the Charter Committee.

“I think we’ve probably not done as good a
job recently in making our presence known to many of the younger people
moving into town or taking jobs in the city,” she says.

“Now our two candidates are co-endorsed, which is unusual, but most people refer to them as Democrats.”

Many of the committee’s benefactors and
staunch supporters have died in recent years, making fundraising more
difficult. The committee has made an effort to reach out to and involve
more young people, but it lacks the institutional knowledge and
connections that a lot of the Charter’s old guard possessed.

•••

The story of the falling of the Charter
Committee is one that has been told many times before, but never seems
to have an ending.

“I think their death notice has been
issued several times prematurely,” Beaupre said. “I don’t think we’ve
ever had not at least one member of their party on council.”

Silbersack said even though the Charter
Committee isn’t as powerful as it used to be, it still has an important
role as an independent good government third party in Cincinnati.

“Increasingly, it seems like there are
efforts made by various groups to amend specific provisions of the
charter, and the Charter Party plays an important role in vetting those
proposals and either supporting or opposing them. In terms of policy,
they’re still a very useful and needed contributor to the public
dialogue,” Silbersack says.

“Occasionally, there are calls for review
of the charter because some provisions are way obsolete, and there are
changes that good government groups may want to see added. I don’t know
if this is the time for a more comprehensive review of the charter, but
if that was to occur I think you most definitely want the Charter Party
around to add its expertise and nonpartisan experience to the mix.”

The Charter Committee exists only in
Cincinnati. Bobbie Sterne, who served as a member of council during the
Charter-Democratic coalition and also as Cincinnati’s first female
mayor, says the local focus lets voters know that the city is the
priority.

“I think that’s a great advantage to
Charterites and therefore to the city to have people on Charter on city
government who don’t have outside interests they are considering — their
only interest is trying to have a government that is doing the best
they can for the citizens of Cincinnati,” Sterne says.

Flynn says the committee and its independence still has a lot to offer Cincinnatians, and that is only going to grow.

“Our representatives should be beholden
to the people of the city of Cincinnati and not their political party,”
Flynn says. “Charter is the only vehicle that’s out there right now that
gives City Council members that ability.”

He says people are fed up with the
quagmire of national politics and are less inclined to care whether or
not their local councilperson has a D or an R next to his or her name.

“I think the opportunities for Charter
are the best they’ve ever been,” Flynn says. “My goals are to do the
best I can to groom some candidates and lead Charter into the future as
well as letting people know that Charter is out there and Cincinnati
needs Charter as much as Charter needs Cincinnati.”